User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
Stan Bernard
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: September 13, 2013

Bottom Line:

PSW 2500 was given to me with a blown relay, KEF quoted me £120 to repair the Amp.
Frank Johnson on http://lug.demon.co.uk/kefrepair/ ddid a complete overhaul including shipping for £35 in 24 hours from start to finish. All the parts he changed were returned with the unit.
The bass is extremely punchy, I set the crossover and phase to match my main speakers with an audio app on the iphone and have been suitably impressed. Minimal boominess was achieved with careful placement and the sound improvement is excellent. I leave the 12/24db switch in the 12db position and the Cinema/Music switch in Cinema mode. Cambridge 540 R V1 and Eltax Concept 180's along with the KEF provides a very satisfying home cinema feel with good bass accuracy. If you get lucky and find a used one by all means buy it and send it in to Frank Johnson for the full treatment and you will be rewarded with a bullet proof bass machine that will perform for years to come.

First, let's make one thing clear: This sub has been designed, primarily, for amps/processors with dedicated sub pre amp outputs! If what you are looking for is a "SPEAKER LEVEL" fed subwoofer, look elsewhere. It really is that simple. This unit is aimed at the Home Cinema side of the audio market. This does not, however, mean there is a going to be serious limitations to it's bass reproduction abilities, far from it in fact. Sighted and set up correctly, the PSW 2500 will, in fact, produce 20hz frequencies cleanly and accurately. Granted, the actual volume level will roll off pretty rapidly as you get down there, but if you need more low end clout, and wish to stay faithful to KEF, there's always the PSW 3000.Now for a warning: if you are a U.S. based 'cinephile' the chances are you'll have, either, a dedicated cine room, or a large living/family room that will house your home cinema. This will effect your choice of speakers, and our American cousins do love their bass lines solid, tight and deep. So your choice of main speakers will have deeper bass response than, say, a typical U.K. speaker set up used in a British home cinema. If so, you need to factor in the cost of 2 PSW 2500/3000s', and then balance them correctly.That is the only negative, if you want to call it a negative.I've used various KEF subs over some 20+ years, and the PSW 2500, in my view, continues the tradition of quality sound and reliably efficient sub 40hz reproduction that, in my view, is extremely important to High Fidelity audio replay.

I purchased this sub to go with a pair of KEF iQ3's. The sub (and the KEF PSW 3500) have no speaker level inputs. Nowhere on KEF's site or Vanns site is this stated. Now for the crazy part......
KEF supplies two adapters that are supposed to be used for speaker level inputs. They are simply two RCA male connectors with screw connectors for your speaker inputs. You are then supposed to plug that into the sub. There is no swith for line level or speaker level input. Spoke with KEF - they said it 'should' be fine. Didn't they design and build these??? Also, with sub documentation they included a sweet for how to hook up the sub with those adapters. They actually tell you to hook additional speaker wires to the same speaker outputs on you amp you drive your front speakers with. They could not tell me if that would affect the impedance of the main speakers and ould not say whether it would damge my integrated tube amp. They did say that my amp probably would not 'like' it. Also, when you connect as directed, the sub's built in crossover will not work as it should. Your front speakers will get the full range and the sub will cut off at the setting from 40 to 140Hz. Thy then told me to split the RCA outs in some crazy way.

Unless you are ONLY going to use this in a home theatre application with one single RCA output from your amp to the sub, this thing is worthless. There is NO OTHER WAY TO USE THESE SUBS. BEWARE.

These also are not cheap - I got about 1/2 off the 2500 - a good deal it would seem. These are like $600 and $1100 subs. My first and LAST dealings with KEF due to inferior engineering. Also, I have to pay the shipping back to Vanns because they do not know what they are selling. I posted a review to their site and send them an emailing informing them of situiation. I got an RMA.

I will not order from Vanns anymore. Stick with Crutchfield. Better info and customer service.